"opia" poems
Opia. Noun. The ambiguous intensity of looking into someone's eyes, which can fell simultaneously invasive and vulnerable.
As you lie in my arms, watching the television, you don't notice that my undivided attention is focused on you. Something I've been dreaming of for weeks, and it's finally come true. Even better, from your angle, you can't see me staring into your eyes, so I don't feel the nervous compulsion to turn away. Whether directly or not, I could drink in your eyes with mine, for hours, and they would be among the best hours of my life.
Then there's the other hand, held tightly by trepidation. I love the prospect of your eyes staring into mine, but it's not without its fears. I'm afraid you'll see all the pain and fears that I've spent the past seven years working to overcome. I'm afraid you'll see all the insecurity and doubts I have about myself. I'm afraid you'll see all the words that I long to whisper in your ear, but can't, because I'm terrified of scaring you away. I'm afraid you won't like the fact that, behind these eyes lies only pictures and thoughts of you. But most of all, I'm afraid that, unlike me, who loves every detail, and lives for moments like these, you won't love the things you see. I long for the day when you stare happily into my eyes, but I'm frightened that you won't enjoy the secrets they reveal.
Jun 27, 2015
Jun 27, 2015 at 4:53 PM UTC
Have you ever met someone so intense
Not in a normal way
but in a way that when they look at you
you feel such Opia when you gaze into their eyes
Such an intensity flows from just a glance
it feels as though they see right through you
they know your hopes, your fears, your pain
They’ve seen you through your own eyes
and it began with only a glance
Have you ever met someone so intense?
I have,
They were one of the most interesting people I knew
however, it seems
the most intense people
cause the most heartbreak
and the most heartbreak
is caused by
the most intense people
they can see into your soul with only a glance
and leave you wanting, one more chance.
Jan 29, 2016
Jan 29, 2016 at 1:55 PM UTC
Not the first, nor hundredth view inside.
Masks forgotten with departed boundaries,
Tied through inner worlds and silenced words;
Stripped. Of everything but a shadowed view of depth.
With this, a fall into bottomless fragility.
A glittering lock of unknown vulnerability;
A naked tether. Souls on show.
An illuminance playing in purity below.
Outlines blurred of who, or what, we are,
With memories brought ashore in tidal waves.
After learning to float, succumb to the intricate sway
Of days spent glimpsing our reality.
Aug 2, 2016
Aug 2, 2016 at 9:13 AM UTC
And you remind me of every person I know and love.
If you can live long enough,
Life will teach you how to live,
And in the moment we'll grow.
And all I can give
Is nothing more than the truth
As we reap what we sow.
I guess it's true what they say,
You live and learn,
Misguided youth now we wait and burn,
I guess it's true that it's easier to fake than it is to actually do.
The devil disguised in the roots,
I watched him grow inside of you.
Inspite of you, I was inspired by you,
But
I was just passing through,
Transparent apparently on a path led with tangled leaves,
Tread into the ground.
I guess it's true that were bounded by love.
As the seasons changed so did the reasons to fall.
And I fell for you implicitly,
like rain drops from clouds.
Jan 10, 2016
Jan 10, 2016 at 7:58 AM UTC
Our opia
Was *****
On winter nights and
Beneath the summer sun
You looked at me
And fueled my addiction
Our love
Melancholy melody
Droned on
Through the seasons
A constant craving
Until finally I ran out of you
You left me
My addiction still raging full force
You left me
With no help through detox
And that is why it killed me
Dec 28, 2015
Dec 28, 2015 at 1:10 PM UTC
"The ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable."
Invasive?
Doesn't a deep gaze carry
numerous hooks disguised as unpretentious interrogation marks?
They're faster than the blink of the eyelids,
ambitiously break into the one in front,
stealing something
not for sale in the first place.
But, you just wanted to know
...just wanted to know that sparkling little piece of life behind the curtains of the iris
Then you suddenly find yourself apologizing
It was not your intention to set your noxious questions free,
hooks of someone else's life
Vulnerable?
You smell the eyes in front of you,
You see they can effortlessly listen to your thoughts, which have been screaming anyway, from the windows, of your soul.
Even those ignored little parts insist on showing off
You can almost physically feel it,
streams of dense water travelling
from the very core of your cells,
going up your veins,
holding your breath for a second when passing through your throat,
until it finally reaches your pupils' edge,
where they can bluster it out
and it's gone!
You're left with the hope
that the eyes in front of you haven't seen the spectacle.
Sep 2, 2015
Sep 2, 2015 at 6:24 PM UTC
Just let me see you
Let me look in your eyes
Because after five minutes
Everything will be alright
Aug 10, 2015
Aug 10, 2015 at 9:11 PM UTC
*The eyes are first to sparkle
To reveal boundless joy
The eyes shout euphoria from the very tops of every hill
The eyes are also first to glisten
Swimming in a salty pool
They blink and blink to hold them in but they won't always stay hidden
The eyes are the windows into the soul
They peer to see if it is broken
Or if it is still standing, resolutely strong and whole
The eyes can read a thousand lies
They peel back woven cloths
They offer a glimpse, a chance to check if anything is disguised
I keep my face turned away
My eyes fixed on something else
I keep my eyes averted just so I can avoid another's gaze
But when I do, when I hold
Your unwavering stare
Lightning bolts shoot through me, stirring deep and cold
A heightened awareness of every breath
Making sure to keep them steady
I keep up my end, never breaking, with all the courage I have left
Those eyes bore right into my being
A rawness fresh and apparent
Your eyes have now seen everything
I flinch, I sever the electric current*
May 17, 2016
May 17, 2016 at 4:10 AM UTC
Kiss me in the cruel beating wind,
your rubatosis against mine,
after I feel our opia.
Make me invincible to everything
except you.
Feb 18, 2014
Feb 18, 2014 at 12:45 PM UTC
₁Peering into my eyes in a darkened room
Your dog curled up, lilliputian,
Quietened behind the wall across from us
Your hands cradle my face as if I am crumbling marble
₅Venusian statue that you've finished carving
Delicacy and care reside in your fingers
I cannot see you, your everything is blurred
You are a frustratingly unfinished masterpiece
You are an out-of-focus black and white Kodak photo
Candid snapshot a girl has taken with her camera phone
Wordless and soundless,
Silent in an equally soundless room
I hear our syncopated breathing,
Softened, pulsing rhythm, cadence of your breath
Fanning across my bottom lip
You open your mouth
A sliver of light from your window
Curtains, diaphanous, like gossamer silk
Flutter in the stream of your quiet fan
You speak
My eyelids flit like moth's wings on a Spring evening
You speak
There's approximately four striations of shades
In your irises,
Flecks of opaque peridot and ochre
God drizzled in spools of honey
Swirled in the colors of crisp autumn leaves and sun-dappled orange
Called it done
I press my face against your cheek
Leave a lasting imprint of you there
Your touch will be ghost-like
I'll feel it on my skin seven months later
“You are so pretty you know that?”
Your eyes split me open
Like a cadaver whose bones were strung
With pearls and fitted with chains
Beauty in the macabre
Beauty in a breakdown
Sep 30, 2017
Sep 30, 2017 at 1:20 PM UTC
the squinting of the wind
as it whips me about
pulling and driving,
throwing me into the street,
leaving me gasping for air.
then the lights from above.
orange and violet and flecked
like your cheeks, like your ring.
you're looking into my eyes,
something is reminding you of me.
the low hum from the backseat
we don't know all the words
but we know most of them.
somehow, you don't look over at me.
the lethargy and strange pellucidity of dusk
in the corner of the city where light hangs
like satin off the curves of a goddess
getting ready for bed.
then, one thousand cups of black tea.
hands on the table, the glass door
calendars all falling off the walls
as the room shakes, days drifting to the floor.
everything spins in orbit
and it doesn't seem to matter
that nothing makes sense,
that the liberty of delineation
is intentionally stripped.
an effulgent twilight may be soaking
through your raw and simmering skin,
but my only fear in this moment
is that I'm still holding back.
Apr 12, 2015
Apr 12, 2015 at 12:55 AM UTC
I stand on the corner of your alley
hypnotized by your history,
sippin’ interchangeable, infinite
equations from your soul, punctuatin’
reflected rhymes inside my head,
consecutive clauses, the type of ****
that suffocates your subconscious.
There’s no repentance from your existence,
no self-absorbed lines that echo
through my ears, just metaphoric tunes
spinning without reason, and without
reason, mystical flames create earthquakes
across my plantation, and I know I’m
conceited, but I’d rather mix patterns
that blend in Saturn, in fact, mix drums
that fade worlds, mix drums that questions
minds, mix drums that spin sea waves.
Meanwhile, ****** knock me down cuz
I’m floating off orbit, cuz I’m spring
on your ****** Opia, cuz your cosmic
plane controls my veins, freestyling
gibberish, soulless lyrics, aimin’ to cause
confusion, and through confusion,
contradiction, and through contradiction,
annihilation of my mind. **** them!
Ignorance is no more than expressions,
no more than a candle without a burning
flame, sinkin’, imprisoned, revolving
around a moonlight planet. Besides,
who gives a **** what they say!
All I want to do is slow crawl
in your powdered nectar, get high
off mary jane, while my brain raps
and taps in city streets, and the inhalin’
and exhalin’ of your culture cancellin
out my fact and fiction.
Jun 16, 2019
Jun 16, 2019 at 10:49 PM UTC
opia- the intensity of looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable
i squint, my eyes scrunching until i can only see through a slits of my eyelids.
i see your blue eyes staring back at me. neither squinting nor widening
“this staring contest is too much. i can not win” i state.
i continue starting.
your mouth moves. gliding from smile to a sly smirk.
“you’re right. you can’t win, i’m the best at this game”
you reach across the table placing your soft palms against my cheeks.
holding my face in your hands as if i were a little child.
oh your hands are so warm
and so soft that i can’t help but opening my eyes.
my gaze rises and soon our eyes are at the same level.
your eyes are dark blue
almost as if they were made of the water from the deepest parts of the ocean.
there is mystery behind those eyes
and i know that if i stare too long
i will turn to stone and become captive in your stare.
but no
i’m like a blind woman in love with medusa.
the more i gravitate towards you
the deeper i fall into your eyes.
deep dark blue eyes
dipping into my baby blue soul
stripping me of all my inhibitions.
i guess
you’ve won the staring contest.
May 2, 2018
May 2, 2018 at 8:41 PM UTC
I've always felt I was a sunflower
*dancing around
with my scintillating akratic vibration
the riviting opia long since latched;
quick to your raunchy defeat*
just remember to catch your breath
because so far,
every and each
lascivious contender had
forgotten to breathe.
But I just now had my
little-girl fantasy smashed wayy down
Hit with a 2x4 in the face;
it's also pretty infamous under the a.k.a. Reality,
I mean who else could cause
that severe of a frown
on the little girl
who parades around town
in a princess gown and crown?
I'm now living with Reality;
And apparently I'm ******* Snow
Cold-Hearted and Alluring
Striking was actually the word used
But Reality couldn't possibly know
who I was before I was "striking"
Besides, didn’t Reality strike me first?
Feb 11, 2018
Feb 11, 2018 at 7:01 AM UTC
While searching for unladen skies,
he came across a magpie resting in
a clear patch of swept dirt at his mangled feet.
(and here the story begins, don’t you think?)
Wait—
Do I intimidate you?
With my silken sashay of solicited yet lavish and rattled ramifications?
Complicated, complex logic behind words you don’t know—
words like sonder, opia, and undulate,
euphonious, sempiternal, and sisyphean.
You called them ‘fancy words’,
as if they are dressed for a masked ball and
in elegant suits and dresses, or someplace in-between,
they are dancing the waltz across marble mezzanines behind grey crenellations.
I’m not asking for the meaning of life or great quintessential and quaint questions,
but yet you ponder what’s after death before looking upon my countenance.
Do I require an irascible attitude in ninth grade, forced to be seen,
a scathing cascade of inward curses, each more extensive than the last?
******** ******* ************ and a variety of words meaning **** and ******
So ashamed to fail, as though I belong to a singular meaning and no other.
I tell you now, I am not
crisscrossed with sultry language and full of your ‘can’t’ attitudes.
Whether I make you work or lie in agony over a line,
the job is to provide not pain, but—
understanding, comfort, hiraeth, empathy,
a place for anger, loneliness, emptiness
and inexpressible language…
but as words are only one facet to this endless complication,
I think you should pay attention to the small things.
But I won't dictate your life,
I’m only a broken magpie confined to earth,
Clothed in feathers and ultimatums.
Oct 22, 2018
Oct 22, 2018 at 8:56 PM UTC
Eyes meet,
heart fleets.
Just for a short moment.
The ambiguity of my eyes locking with those of stranger is one that I can never get used to.
What was laced in your eyes, what did you want to tell me that you were too scared to say?
Was it the colour of my eyes on warm summer's day,
or the beauty my child's smile in a rainy may?
Was it your desire to walk up to me and say hello,
or your sudden interest in the confidence I walked with?
Eyes meet,
hearts fleet,
the awkwardness that comes with knowing you have met eyes with a person you were not meant to be looking at,
the pain that stings in your heart after locking eyes with the one you owe an apology to because of your selfish morality.
Eyes meet and suddenly flutter away, look of annoyance plastered on my sister's face, saying, "can I help you?"
"Why are you staring at me?"
Dec 4, 2024
Dec 4, 2024 at 6:54 AM UTC
Word of the day - OPIA
Meaning - the ambiguous intensity of eye contact
______________________
All over the world,
I’ve heard legends
about an evil soul
re-birthed
because one woman,
dressed all in white,
her beauty like nature’s light,
her lips, full and cherry red
and her eyes,
eyes like that of a huntress.
One look from her,
and the dead man reawakened,
from love, from passion.
I never believed in the lore.
A man and woman
conversing in the language of eyes.
But two hours ago,
I met such a huntress
and once my eyes met hers,
no fireworks erupted around us
no violin strings
no flower petals falling from up above
just a wave of peace
and calmness
took over my soul.
I have committed dark sins
that stole my sleep at night
but one look from her
and I wasn’t terrified anymore
because I believed,
I had a chance at redemption.
I suddenly trusted the darkness
that resided in me.
Just one look
and I knew that
I could be purified too.
It wasn’t love.
It was magic,
and a dose of it
was all I needed
to be re-birthed.
May 4, 2018
May 4, 2018 at 10:52 AM UTC